


as the fruit tree among the trees of the wood

by Ias



Series: orange grove [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Francis Crozier seductively disrobes an orange, M/M, Pining, Seduction, Sexual Tension, pining within an established relationship??? you betcha.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 21:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14962140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: There comes the heavy, drawn-out, sticky moment where Francis takes the orange out of James's hands on a hot day, peels it himself, and feeds it to him slice by slice. They make idle conversation, in-between; but as the orange dwindles so do their words. And when James's lips close around Francis's fingers—once could have been an accident, but twice and three times, and Francis is still holding out pieces—then something entirely different is taking place.





	as the fruit tree among the trees of the wood

**Author's Note:**

> The description of this fic is also the prompt which inspired it, written verbatim by [Kyra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofallimagination); who kindly pointed out that having a fic verse set in an orange grove where James and Francis don't hand feed each other orange slices would be a crime against humanity.

Afterward—when Francis has slipped out of the sheets still clinging with the sweat of James’s fever, when he has gone to his room to change into clothes that smell of no one but himself, when he has combed his sleep-mussed hair into something that would only earn him raised eyebrows at a gentleman’s Club as opposed to an immediate ejection—after all these measures taken to reassert the reality he knows, he follows the steps of his morning routine right back to James’s doorway.

The habit is so ingrained that he does so without thinking. Today, he sees not only James, but himself—the imprint of his own head on the pillow, his coat folded over the back of James’s chair. Francis makes no move to retrieve it now. In sleep, James has splayed his hand over the space Francis’s body occupied until moments ago. He’s already so deeply asleep that he’s actually begun to _drool_ , which should not be as endearing as Francis finds it.

Francis observes the man sleeping for no longer than his custom, ensuring all is well; and then he goes to the kitchen and does something against his custom entirely. He makes tea.

It’s James who always insists on it, even in the swampy heat of summer. But this morning Francis boils the water, fills the pot, and pours a portion into the single cup left on the table from the morning past. The warm rim of the teacup slots to his mouth in much the same way as James’s lips, and Francis burns his tongue on the tea which he brewed too bitter and too hot.

 

* * *

 

“This need not change anything, you know.”

Francis leans up to turn another orange to the sunlight dappling through the leaves, looking for signs of the whiteflies which have plagued this section of the orchard. The sun is almost at its apex, but James has only now come to him in the groves.  James’s skin is still wan and his hair an unbound fright. But when he first settled down onto the tree roots beside where Francis was working and stared up into his face, his smile had made waning moons of his eyes.

For a while, there’s only silence; the memory of the night before hangs between them as thick as the smell of oranges. One he has checked every inch of the orange skin for infestation, he glances over his shoulder to fix James with a single raised eyebrow. “You would have us go back to the way things were?”

“No. Of course not. I only meant—“ James breaks off, dragging his fingers through his long hair he neglected to bind back this morning. “Christ, Francis, I don’t know what I mean. I haven’t the faintest idea of how to proceed from here.”

Francis studiously checks the next cluster of oranges. His eyes do not wander once. “You do not retract it, then?”

“ _No_.” At the intensity in James’s voice, Francis is forced to look up; the man’s expression soothes something in him. “I only meant that I am content— _more_ than content—with this life we’ve build for ourselves. I could never ask for anything more.”

At long last, Francis steps down from his stool. He allows himself a moment to stare at the ground between them, his hands on his hips, before he speaks. Before, the boundaries between them were clear; but now the line has disappeared, and Francis is uncertain where it has moved to, or the consequences if he crosses it. “But do you wish for more?”

It’s not quite silence between them, in the long moment that follows. The wind rustles the leaves in the trees. Somewhere nearby, a bird calls. “Yes,” James says. And then immediately, “do you?”

“Yes.” The admission seems to shift something between them. As if they have turned down a different avenue, one whose path slopes steeper and steeper. In a moment he crosses the two paces between James and himself, and lowers himself onto the roots beside where James is seated. Once there, he takes James’s hand. It’s surprising how easy the gesture is, considering this is the first time he has done it in so casual a fashion; but perhaps not so surprising, given the number of times he has done so in his mind. James glances down at the contact, and then up into Francis’s face.

 “Very well,” Francis says. “Then we ought to go slowly. And we ought to go cautiously.”

After a long moment, James nods. He squeezes Francis’s hand once, before letting go. And when they both rise to their feet as one, for one brief moment Francis presses a hand to James’s lower back, steadying him, and then sliding away.

 

* * *

 

That night, they eat their supper and talk of the trees, and James repeats his story about the capuchin monkey and they argue over whose turn it is to go into town.

(“I went last week, you layabout,” Francis shoots across the table. They’re sitting catty-corner to each other, James’s ankle resting on his knee as he leans back in his chair, struggling to chew the ridiculous bite of bread he’d punctuated his argument with so he can grin again in earnest. They’re close enough that Francis’s ankle is leaning against James’s beneath the table, and neither of them have moved.

Finally James holds up a finger, swallows manfully, and says, “Francis, I’m _sick_.” He’s already laughing before the piece of Francis’s orange peel hits him in the center of the chest.)

And after dinner they’ve taken their turns at the wash basin, with the usual jokes about thawing ice water on _Terror_ and _Erebus._ And they walk down the hall together, as they’ve done dozens of times in the past, only—this time, James stops, and Francis with him. They stand in the doorway of James’s room; beyond, the bed is neatly made, but Francis can almost see their shapes beneath it as they had lain the night before. Like a memory hanging in the air. A template he might choose to fill.

For a moment he and James stare at each other. What lies between them now is not a weight so much as a stretch of rotten ice. Impossible to know which step might run afoul. In the silence between them Francis can hear the click of his own tongue as he finally forces his mouth open.

“I suppose we ought—”

“Francis, I—”

Both draw short, and then laugh together, avoiding each other’s eyes. At last Francis ducks his head, a soft smile on his lips. “Goodnight, James,” he says, to the air between them instead of to James himself. Before he can turn away, James reaches out to grip the fabric of his shirtsleeve, just at the elbow—Francis looks up, and holds very still as James leans forward. The kiss he presses to Francis’s lips is closed-mouthed and chaste. His thumb drags up and down the inside of Francis’s elbow, through the fabric, once and then twice before James pulls away.

“Goodnight, Francis,” he says, and that’s how Francis leaves him. Leaves, to retire to his own room where he lies flat on his back and stares at the dark ceiling, and tries not to lick his lips.

 

* * *

 

Francis does not know how to do this.

It is as simple, and as foolish, as that. In his life, he has had no meaningful attachments save Sophia—who, as those affections flowered but never fruited, probably ought not count. He had practiced his share of dalliances, seen to his physical needs; but the naval life provided about as much fertile ground for love and marriage as did the sea itself.

Or so he had thought. But it was the naval life, of course, which brought him to James.

He has never been a man particularly obsessed with protocol, but beginning that career as a boy of 13 has meant he has lived a life immersed in it. And certainly, society on land is bound by a similar set of articles, unspoken and unwritten, yet with similarly dire consequences when broken. With Sophia, there were steps. There were particular ways that a gentleman was meant to comport himself when courting a lady, and for lack of personal experience he had fallen back on them with relief.

The only protocol which applies to him and James now is one which would earn them the lash. And they have both of them left those rules behind them. There is no clear way forward. Nothing to do but fumble their way along, slowly and carefully.

Francis wakes up first in the mornings, sits at his place at the table, writes letters to old crewmates with no mention at all of how the world has begun to spin on a different axis. James awakens and makes tea; only this time he lets a hand trail over the back of Francis’s neck as he passes by; and sometimes, he leans over Francis’s shoulder to make dry comments on whatever he’s writing, and their cheeks brush in a way that makes Francis feel as if James has touched him with the side of the hot kettle, except that he wants to lean closer.

And in the nights, after long days in the orchard, they part to their separate rooms; sometimes with a kiss, sometimes with a kiss that _lingers_ , and Francis lies down in his cold bed and thinks about the sounds James had made in the back of his throat that very first night—and tries not to do anything about it which James might chance to hear.

Living out the rest of his days in chaste provincial bliss with the naval officer he once punched in the face is a concept which grows more and more surprising the farther along the sentence Francis gets. But he’ll take it. By Christ, he’ll take it and he’ll never let go, even if it feels akin to holding a burning brand.

 

* * *

 

When it happens, it is after James peels an orange.

They’re lounging in the shade of their usual tree after a long day of picking oranges, their heavy burlap bags already near overflowing with fruit. The sweat on Francis’s brow cools in the shade, and James stares half-lidded through the rustling leaves above them. They’re close enough that any passing stranger who glimpsed them might stop to raise an eyebrow—but none travel the well-rutted road which leads to this hillside, and in the shelter of the trees they are alone.

This position atop the smooth roots won’t be comfortable for long, with their shoulders pressed together and the warmth of James’s leg against the side of Francis’s—unbearable for reasons entirely unrelated to the hot summer air. For those reasons rather than in spite of them, Francis might be tempted to stay like this forever. James turns an orange over in his hands, as if searching for a way into it. Francis watches, his arm tucked beneath his head, feeling unreasonably fond. It’s a peaceful moment, watching James picking at the peel.

And then, Francis begins to laugh.

“What are you _doing_?”

James glances up at him, eyebrows raised and this thumb digging into the skin near the stem. “I’m peeling an orange, Francis.”

“You most certainly are not. You’re mauling it. I can practically hear it begging for mercy.”

“I’d like to see you do better,” James retorts, and without thinking Francis reaches over—the distance between them is so scant he scarcely has to move—and plucks the fruit from James’s hand. That steals whatever words he was going to say, his eyes dropping to Francis’s fingers as he works his nail beneath the peel, the air around them going sweeter, thicker. When James shifts his leg so it’s crooked at the knee, Francis feels the contact sliding along his own like a bow over the strings of a cello, reverberating low and deep within him.

“It’s easier if you work your way in a spiral,” Francis continues, acutely aware of how closely James is watching his hands. Even more aware, out of the corner of his eye, of the glances James steals at his face as he works the fruit free from the peel.

“I can’t see how it matters how the peel comes off,” James grumbles.

“I’m surprised at you, James,” Francis says, keeping his eyes on his work now. “Particular as you are. Didn’t you once give William Wentzell three days duty owing for the state of his collar?”

“For his _nails_ , Francis, and I promise you it was justified.”

“Hmmph,” Francis says, falsely dubious. The peel comes away from the fruit easily. In the noonday heat, the smell is so vivid that it lingers on the tongue. The silence lies easy. At his side, James’s shoulder moves with the steady, slow motions of his breathing, so imperceptible Francis might not have noticed if he were not paying very careful attention. When he leans into it, slightly, he feels James do the same.

The last of the peel comes away in one long curl. “Like so,” he says smugly, dangling the whole peel over James’s face. James snatches it from the air and unspools it between his fingers, frowning at its pale underbelly as if looking for instructions there.

“How on earth you’ve managed to go this long without learning how to properly peel an orange is beyond me,” Francis continues. “You haven’t been eating them peel-on, have you?”

James leans over to slap his arm, lips pursed to contain his smile; but as close as they are, his hand lands in the center of Francis’s chest, like a single, solid heartbeat that stops as soon as it starts. “Don’t be an ass.”

Francis should hand the peeled fruit back to him. If he is to respect the careful boundaries they are still redrawing between them, he would do so without hesitation. Except Francis finds himself digging the halves of the fruit apart, his fingers instantly growing sticky with juice. Without really knowing what he’s doing, he holds a segment out—and James is _looking_ at him, not at the proffered piece of fruit. But not in such a way that makes Francis want to withdraw his hand.

Their fingers brush as James takes the fruit. Francis watches as James holds it to his lips, biting through its center. Their eyes move away, and then back, and then away again. Like the steps in a dance, forward and then backward to a rhythm that is felt, not heard.

Francis begins to pull apart another segment.

“Sweeter than the others,” James says lightly. Still watching Francis’s hands, and making no move to reach over and stop him. “Which tree was this from?”

“One in the eastern section. Closer to the stream.” Francis is remotely proud of how level his voice sounds as he offers the second slice.

“Hmm.” James accepts it. They’re close enough that he doesn’t have to reach; merely raise his hand slightly to take it, and bring it the final inches to his lips. This time Francis allows himself to watch for longer, to note, as dispassionately as he once might have noted the speed of the wind or the chop of the waves, the way the juice shines on his lips. The way he sucks the lingering taste from his thumb. Francis eats a slice himself, feels the sweetness burst on his tongue. The very same that James is tasting, even now.  

“The hillside’s at more of a slant, there,” James says. “The trees could be getting more sunlight.”

“But it faces the north,” Francis counters, and holds out the next slice—but he’s looking at James’s face, not judging the distance, and so he holds it closer than James can comfortably fold his arm.

Perhaps that’s why, after a moment that isn’t hesitation so much as anticipation, James leans forward to close his mouth around the piece of fruit directly from Francis’s fingers.

Francis cannot look away. Not even though he feels, with a wild and desperate certainty, that he _must_ —he must not see this, must not allow himself to see it, for the image of James’s mouth ghosting his fingers, eyes lidded and low, will brand itself into Francis’s mind with a similar yet opposite degree of agony to the effigy of James slumped in the boat sled. This is nothing like the circles they have moved around each other these past two weeks. Nothing careful, or chaste. It is warm and sticky and slow and heavy and Francis can barely breathe.

James leans back, only slightly, to wipe the juice that lingers there—and then the fingers remain, as if savoring rather than brushing away. It’s only when his throat bobs with a swallow that he looks up into Francis’s eyes.

“Perhaps it’s the water, then,” he says, his voice only slightly rougher than before, as if nothing at all is different.

“Could be.” Francis’s fingers are steady as he selects another slice of the orange, and this time there’s no pretense when he holds it to James’s mouth.

James hums an affirmative as his lips close around it again, much less careful this time of Francis’s fingers. “Or something in the soil the water carried here.” 

Francis turns his quiet smile to the orange in his hand. “You’re turning quite the gardener after all.”

“Well, it’s fairly simple in comparison to sailing. It’s much more difficult to run an orchard aground on coastal shoals.”

When he takes the next slice from Francis’s hand, James’s lips close around the tips of Francis’s fingers, only for an instant, in a moment of carelessness that could still have been dismissed as an accident; but when Francis proffers the next with a hand which tremble only slightly, he feels the warmth of James’s mouth once again. Francis is struck by the sudden question of what James might do if he did not draw his fingers back. The air is warm, and very close.

The leaves stir in the faint breeze above, bringing the smell of orange blossoms. There’s a wariness to what’s happening now, a sense of heavy waiting. As if both of them are circling the same ground, testing limits. Francis’s awareness stretches only to the motion of his hand to James’s mouth, and then occasionally to his own—like a ritual, praying the rosary, only Francis has never craved religion the way he craves this now.

“I’m not certain this is wise,” Francis says, betrayed by the faint catch in his voice.

James looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “What isn’t, Francis?” The innocence in his face is wholly undercut by the low tone of his voice.

Francis laughs, a single huff of air that comes out slightly strangled. “James.”

“We’re almost done,” James says, inclining his head to the orange; and it’s true there is only one segment left in Francis’s hand. This is precisely the point where Francis should put a stop to this. For if he allows this to continue now that they have acknowledged what precisely it is they’re doing, there is no telling what it may lead to. _Slowly. Carefully_.

He raises the final piece of fruit.

As Francis moves, his nail pierces the skin; the juice runs down his hand to the wrist. He’s raising it to his mouth to catch the drop when James seizes his hand, his thumb sliding into the crease of Francis’s palm. He closes his mouth around the last piece of orange, sucking the juice from Francis’s fingers before following that errant drop all the way down to Francis’s pulse point. Never once do his eyes leave Francis’s. His fingers rest on the tendons on the back of Francis’s hand like a guitarist on the strings, and Francis feels the pluck and reverberation of this moment through his chest and into the warm ground beneath him.

“ _James_ ,” Francis repeats, his voice ragged as a man who has tasted neither food nor drink in a fortnight. James’s dark eyes grow darker at the sound of his name. There is no stopping it, after that. Francis turns his hand to cup the side of James’s face as he abandons all reservations and leans in.

The kiss is slow at first, trailing from the one corner of James’s mouth to the other without deepening it at all. James’s mouth is sticky and tastes of oranges, and Francis finds himself chasing that sweetness, lost in it, drunk on it, his own fingers leaving trails of juice on James’s neck.

 _We ought to stop_. The words fly apart in Francis’s mind the instant they form. The sound that escapes James’s throat when Francis sucks a kiss at the hinge of James’s jaw makes Francis’s head swim faster and more deliciously than the best whiskey ever had. He moves down to apply similar action to the smooth line of James’s neck, where he can taste the juices his own fingers smeared there moments before. James is silent, not even _breathing_ , as Francis continues his slow and thorough exploration. When Francis sets his teeth to the skin of James’s throat he can feel the quick rhythm of his heart.

“ _Oh_ ,” James says, the syllable heavy and low. The man sucks in a short, shallow breath—and then another, and another, until they all come out in a moan that James can’t bite back soon enough.

It’s then that Francis stops, forcing his hands to relax on James’s waist as he presses his face to James’s clavicle, feeling it rise and fall with his shaky breaths. Francis’s heart is doing a military drumroll in his ears. He’s on the edge, _they’re_ on the edge, of something there can truly be no returning from. Francis’s hand kneads in James’s shirt in time with both their breaths, but neither seem to be growing any slower.

“Francis.” The gentleness with which James cups the back of his head is comparable only to the near-broken tenor of his voice. “I think we should go back to the house.”

It takes a moment for James’s meaning to sink in. When it does, Francis pulls back to inspect James’s face. James is wearing that expression he gets when he feels he’s about to do something stupid, all stubborn eyes and tense-faced, undercut only by how utterly debauched he looks.

“To the house, then,” Francis says hoarsely; and the look in James’s dark eyes through Francis like the touch of Arctic water, a frenzy and a paralysis all at once, a shot straight to the brain; only it’s nothing like that at all.

 

* * *

 

They walk to the house side-by-side, neither making any pretenses about the quickness of their pace. James’s hand is fisted in the shoulder of Francis’s shirt, and Francis has his hand pressed to the small of James’s back, hurrying each other along; it’s unwieldy, but neither of them lets go even as they step onto the tired old porch and slip through the front door.

In the heat of the day, the air inside the house plasters against them like oil. James’s fingers tighten on Francis’s shirt, gently tugging him down the hall. Francis stumbles after him, dragging his feet with a grin spreading over his face, so James has to glance back and yank him harder with a smile of his own.

They stop in James’s doorway, only for a moment. Both of their breathing is rougher than even the brisk walk should account for. They wait beside the memories of every night Francis has hesitated here, every morning he’s stood in the threshold. And then James pulls him in, pulls him _close_ , which is almost enough to distract Francis from what James’s other hand is doing.

“Are you mad?” he says, catching the door as James starts to close it. He doesn’t bother to keep the laughter out of his voice. “You’ll bake us alive.”

James stares at him as if he’s started speaking Inuktitut. “We can’t very well leave it _open_ , Francis.”

“Need I remind you in all the time we’ve been here we’ve never once had someone call on us?”

A smile plucks at the edges of James’s mouth. “Well if it were to happen, it would certainly happen _today_.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes.” Francis shoves the door closed and then crowds James up against it, smothering James’s all-too-smug laughter with the clumsy press of his mouth. James’s hands settle on Francis’s hips and pull their bodies flush. The contact is almost as unbearable as the heat.

Francis pushes James back under the pretenses of pushing the man’s suspenders down his shoulders. Already a sheen of sweat glistens on James’s neck. “We really should have waited until evening.”

“We can always stop.”

“You’re full of bad ideas today,” Francis says dryly, pulling James’s shirt free from his trousers with a businesslike tug. James sways with the motion of it, his eyes gone dark.

“You seem to approve of this one,” he says, only his tone has gone far too careful of itself, working far too hard to stay level. Francis keeps the distance between them, scant as it is, as he slips a hand beneath James’s shirt. When he presses his palm to James’s stomach he _feels_ the sharp inhale contracting against his hand. James’s lips remain parted, his fingers clenching Francis’s arms tighter.

“I do approve,” Francis says, his own voice quite natural despite the racing of his pulse. “I’m certainly glad not to be lying on those tree roots just now.”

“And I’ll be glad not to listen to you gripe about your aching back for a week afterward.”

Rather than chide him, Francis lets his hand wander higher; pressing the ribs beneath the flesh, until he finds the bullet wound that almost killed the man twice-over. It’s nothing more than a raised patch of skin now, the size of a pence; Francis’s fingers circle it, contemplative, in a way that makes James’s smile soften.

“James,” he says, low and quiet, and feels the man’s breathing change accordingly. “Are you certain this is what you—”

“Damn it, Francis, _yes.”_  

James is staring at him like he is the sole remaining point in the world, biting the inside of his cheek as if trying to hold something back. It’s an expression Francis has seen him wear dozens of times, one which from this moment forward will make him think of _this_. He leans in, slowly, to press an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of James’s jaw, and at the same moment he slides his hands back down the slope of James’s chest, stomach, and then lower.

The noise which escapes James’s throat is almost one of shock. His knees buckle so suddenly that Francis has to push him more firmly against the door, holding him tighter as his head drops against Francis’s shoulder. His hands, which had been pushing at Francis’s suspenders, ball themselves into fists.

For a while, there’s nothing more. It’s so warm and close in the room, with Francis’s shirt clinging to his skin and James clinging to _him_ ; and silent, but for the rustle of fabric and skin, the ragged breaths James smothers in his shoulder, and the other noises he can’t disguise so well.

“You know,” James manages, between shallow, heavy breaths, “when I suggested we go back to the house I had imagined we would use the _bed_ —”

Francis is halfway tempted to make some quip about eliminating this as a method of keeping James quiet, but in truth he is not so trusting of his own voice. He focuses on James, on how he trembles and pushes forward and falls back again, like a rough tide on a rocky shore.

It’s not long before James turns his face into the crook of Francis’s neck, his hands clenching and unclenching against his shoulders. “Francis,” he says against the bare skin above the collar, sharp and suddenly desperate. Francis can feel the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinks too quickly. “Francis, I, I don’t think—Oh, _Christ_ —”

 “It’s alright, James,” he murmurs, and that alone is enough.

With a low groan James shudders one last time, and Francis has to push James against the door _hard_ to stop him from crumpling, one arm around his back and their bodies pressed together. He holds James through it, until the shudders are no more than a faint trembling and his fists have relaxed their grip, trailing circles over Francis’s shoulders. When Francis bends his head to press a kiss to James’s neck, he finds the taste of oranges mingling with James’s sweat.

Only when James’s breathing has finally slowed does Francis pull back. James is wearing a dazed expression, blinking half-lidded eyes too quickly, the color high in his cheeks. Francis could very well stare at him like this forever.

Unfortunately, he just can’t help himself.  

“Well,” Francis says, falsely-casual, though he’s only this moment caught his breath. When James blinks in confusion, he can’t keep the grin from his face. “I suppose we really ought to get back to work—”

“You _awful_ man,” James growls, burying his fist in the front of Francis’s shirt to and staggering away from the door, tugging Francis along by the tight grip just over his heart until they reach the bed at last.

They pick no more oranges that day.

 

* * *

 

Some time later and beneath the same tree, James peels an orange perfectly for the first time. Francis watches the production as best he’s able with his head resting in James’s lap; a much more comfortable position, he’s found, than using tree roots for a pillow. They don’t bother keeping their lunch breaks short these days.

When he glances up he sees the smile on James’s face first, more of a smirk than anything—he’s looking not at Francis but at the peeled piece of fruit in his hand.

Francis raises his head slightly, drawing James’s gaze. “Penny for your thoughts?”

With his other hand, James holds up the single, perfect spiral of the peel he’s just removed. And at once Francis knows exactly what he’s thinking about, and sits up to chase those thoughts to their inevitable conclusion. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken (sort of) from the Song of Songs: _Like an apple tree among the trees of the wood is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste._
> 
> Find me on[on tumblr!](plaidmax.tumblr.com)


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